Dozens of tech companies want to bring 4,400 homes to this small town — and residents are furious

The sleepy town of Brisbane, California, located on the outskirts
of Silicon Valley, is poised to become the next major housing
destination in the Bay Area, with help from the tech industry.

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Leaders from nearly three dozen tech companies, including
Salesforce, Yelp, AT&T, Comcast, and Square, signed off on a
letter to local officials last week, urging them to consider a
development proposal that would add seven million square feet of
commercial space and 4,400 housing units to the small city,
according to the San Francisco Business Times.

The Brisbane Baylands project has received sharp criticism from
people living in Brisbane, who don't want to see an influx of
tech workers change the character of their neighborhoods. The
project
would more than triple the city's population of about 4,600
over the next 30 years.

At a meeting of the Brisbane City Council on August 8, local
officials heard from residents and housing advocates in a meeting
to decide the proposal's fate. Protesters came from across the
region, passing out "Build housing" stickers and carrying signs
that read "Boycott Brisbane!"

"We are a little town. We are unique. There is no other place
like Brisbane until we get far away from here," said resident
Carolyn Parker in an interview with local paper,
The Daily Journal.

"We did not create the housing crisis in the Bay Area and we
should not be the solution to the entire Bay Area's housing
crisis," resident Karen Cunningham
told the Journal.

An increase in housing supply could bring other changes to the
waterfront community. The additional 4,400 units of homes and
apartments could lower the value of existing homes.

caption

Brisbane, California, sits right off Highway 101, a major pass connecting San Francisco and the area known as Silicon Valley. It's the site of a proposed mixed-use development project that would bring 4,400 housing units to the city.

source

Google Maps screenshot

City council members pushed the vote on the mixed-use development
to the end of August.

In a letter to the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors, tech
moguls including Salesforce's Marc Benioff and Yelp's Jeremy
Stoppelman
described the Brisbane Baylands project as a
"once-in-a-generation opportunity" to make progress on the area's
housing imbalance.